Section: US & Canada

The chairwoman of the Russian Federation Council says the upper house of parliament is drafting legislation that would retroactively proclaim the Soviet Union’s 1954 transfer of Crimea to Ukraine as “legally void and nonbinding” since the moment of its enactment. …read more Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio...

Previous rounds of talks in September involving representatives of Ukraine, Russia, pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe produced a ceasefire deal, which has often been violated. Recent peace efforts have helped sharply reduce hostilities, and the conflicting parties are now discussing...

The presidents of Ukraine and Kazakhstan have discussed military cooperation and the situation in eastern Ukraine during a meeting in Kyiv. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the countries renewed their military and technical cooperation. He also said Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev agreed the principals outlined in the Minsk...

It would seem to be a stressful holiday season for Russia’s ultra-wealthy elite, the gilded class of post-Communist billionaires with a taste for costly things and close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The secretive group, known popularly as the oligarchs, for their control over Russia’s oil, metals, banking, gas,...

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has bailed out a mid-sized bank for about $500 million to save it from bankruptcy— a clear sign that the slide in the value of the ruble in the wake of falling oil prices is straining the banking system. The problems afflicting Trust Bank follow a tumultuous period for the ruble, which this year has shared the title of the...

As economic gloom settles over Moscow, parts of the Russian capital have become Potemkin villages. The most splendid of these still prosperous looking facades is Moscow City, a shiny $14 billion forest of glass and steel skyscrapers that includes four of Europe’s five tallest buildings with the tallest building of all still under...

Washington (AFP) – Time magazine named AFP’s Bulent Kilic as its Best Wire Photographer for 2014 on Monday for his powerful images from the Syrian border, Ukraine and his native Turkey.He is the third Agence France-Presse photographer to win the Time laurel for excellence in news wire images, established in 2010.Kilic, 35,...

MOSCOW (AP) — The slide in the value of Russia’s ruble is straining that country’s banking system. Russia’s Central Bank says it has bailed out a mid-sized bank, at a cost of about $500 million, in order to save it from bankruptcy. It will also place Trust Bank under its supervision until it finds an investor. The bank’s...

Existing home sales plunged in November. According to the NAR, the pace of sales fell by 6.1%, to an annualized rate of 4.93 million units. Wall Street had been expecting sales to fall 1.1% to 5.20 million units. Today’s numbers showed the largest drop since July 2010. Economists had a mix of reactions to the data: Bank of...

Russia’s government has pushed the country into an economic crisis by not tackling its financial problems fast enough, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin said on Monday, as evidence mounted of trouble spreading through the economy. As he spoke, President Vladimir Putin prepared to hold emergency talks with Western leaders to try to...